Chapter 2
Teddy
Oops.
When Olivia finally got off the floor where she was laughing hysterically, I was going to panic. “He’s. He finally. That’s.”
She was a bigger dick than I was, but I was more focused on the angry, albeit sexy man who was now standing on his porch as he glared at the neighborhood.
Yeah, he’d finally realized his souper bomber was a neighbor.
In my defense, I’d thought he’d figure it out the first couple of times, and when he hadn’t, I’d kept going. It was really Olivia’s fault for pushing me. Peer pressure took lots of terrible forms and I was just a sweet, innocent sub who couldn’t help himself.
Yep, it was her fault and I was going to keep repeating that as often as necessary.
“How angry do you think he looks?” His default expression for the past six months was angry old man, so it was hard to tell. “Stop laughing. You sound like a donkey. He’s going to hear you.”
This was her fault, so I didn’t have to be polite and her continued laughter said she knew it too.
“He’s sexy even when he looks like he’s growling and threatening to kill me.” I’d heard him talk to himself a lot over the years, so I knew how creative he was when he was pissed. “What do you think my chances of him calling me a naughty boy are?”
If she didn’t stop laughing at me, it was going to hurt my self-esteem.
“He charged back in.” He really was sexy even if he was a grumpy asshole. “He left the door open, though.”
Was he careless?
No, he was supposedly a good Dom and Daddy when he wasn’t in his angry against the world phase.
“What do you think he’s doing?” We had the best neighbors as far as being nosy went, but normally Levi and his roommates were the least weird people on the block. “The door is still open.”
Did someone need to go over and close it?
He was going to get bugs…or those sorority girls.
They were more dangerous than bugs but really entertaining to watch.
“Oh. He’s back.” And with a bowl? “I think he’s eating the soup.”
Angrily.
“Where did we put those binoculars?” Olivia was barely helpful and pointed to the shelf by the front door as she sat up and tried to catch her breath. “Thanks.”
Just because she was a pain in the butt didn’t mean I wouldn’t use my manners.
I was a good boy even if the Daddy across the street would question that.
“He’s…it’s…” Wait. “He changed it somehow. I think he put rice in it?”
We needed better binoculars.
That was definitely going on my Christmas list.
“He’s…he’s finally smartened up.” Taking a deep breath, Olivia closed her eyes and seemed to find her good behavior too. “How long do you think it took him to figure out how to change the soup into something he’d like to eat?”
Too long.
He was sexy as hell, but he was the definition of stubborn.
“He’s smart, so probably not long.” It’d definitely taken him a while because he always saw things very linearly. “He probably just didn’t expect me to be so close…especially this time of year. Campus is nearly empty.”
Everyone cleared out for the holidays except for a handful of students. It made it nice and kind of boring, but it couldn’t be helped, so Olivia and I were making the best of it decorating the house and driving Levi insane.
Which seemed to have worked because he looked slightly unhinged as he angrily ate the rice and lentil mixture that actually looked pretty good.
“You need to keep that rice idea in mind.” He wasn’t wincing at all and if I had to guess I’d say he was enjoying it. “It might help those lentil soups sell better.”
Her boss loved them but nearly everyone else thought they were too plain or something was missing.
We’d decided her boss’s taste buds were missing but Levi’s fix might help.
“He hates soup and most of the lentil stuff at your work especially, so for him to be eating it he had to have made it a lot better.”
That got Olivia up off the floor and she stopped the last of her snickers as she frowned and studied Levi. “Do you think he’d tell us what he did? We could just randomly go on a walk and pretend to be nosy.”
“No.” Eventually he’d take a good look at me and realize who I was…then he’d get pissed all over again. “He’s mad. Not a moron.”
Just a bit slow on the uptake when he was eternally pissed off?
“I think he might fall into the moron category.” Olivia glanced over at me and gave me a look that said she thought I might fall into that category as well. “You’ve known him since you were kids.”
“Yeah, but he was two years ahead of me and had a completely different friend group.” People his parents liked better than they did mine. “I think he’s really only looked at me a handful of times since we’ve grown up.”
Not that I hadn’t done my best to get him to notice me.
I hadn’t been stalker level but I had been awkward and obvious to nearly everyone else.
Everyone but Levi.
He was very single-minded, but I wasn’t going to complain about it when he finally turned all that focus on me. Then he’d be the one who was nearly stalker-level persistent and I’d be his entire world.
It was going to be perfect.
“If you say so.” Olivia rolled her eyes but didn’t call me out verbally. So I ignored it as she turned back to the window. “You know, he really does seem to like it better that way. I wonder what he did to them because they don’t sell at all.”
Except when I bought them.
But the employee discount she snuck me made them actually affordable and he really didn’t like them, so it was a win-win situation. His wince every time the delivery guy showed up with them made it clear what he thought and gave Olivia a giggle.
She didn’t like them either.
“There’s definitely rice in there but we’re going to need better binoculars to figure out the rest.” Or a different level of observation.
Not stalking.
Nope.
It wasn’t my fault if he was out on his front porch while I was looking out the window.
Sunshine was important in the winter.
“Did he just say something?” Olivia’s tone had me crowding next to her and looking out the window again. “His mouth is moving.”
Shit.
He’d said something.
“Do you think he’ll hear us if we open the front door a crack?” I knew it was a stupid question before she snorted. “I’m sorry. I’m not as sneaky as you.”
I’d basically grown up with hippy parents who wouldn’t understand the purpose of lying even if I wrote my dissertation on it.
“It’s called being smart and creative.” She might’ve thought she was telling the truth but her parents were lawyers so…yeah…
“What should I do then?” Because he was going to go inside before I could figure out what he was saying if she didn’t boss me around faster.
“The powder room. Go open that window. It’s on the side of the house and he won’t be able to see it.” She gave me a shove to get me going. “Hurry.”
Everything she did was stressful…but I hurried.
I made it and opened the window just as he seemed to be winding down.
I could barely hear him but it was clear enough to get the gist of it.
“One last time. I apologize for being a dick. It’s been a long year.
I have no idea what I did but you made your point.
So either except my apology or mix it up.
The stew was pretty good as far as being tortured with soup went. ”
He was the most dramatic Dom I’d ever met, and if I hadn’t overheard him talking about wanting a little, I’d have never believed it.
“I’m done. I’m not going to feel guilty about throwing out the soup going forward because I’ve apologized.” He mumbled something about being a moron before there was silence.
When it stretched out for a few long moments, I wasn’t surprised to hear Olivia. “He went inside.”
Shutting the window, I headed back to the front of the house. “I couldn’t see him but I could hear him. What was he doing? What did he look like?”
Ignoring her dramatic facial expressions, I waited her out until she gave in. “Kind of like his normally pissy self but different.”
She had no ability to describe anything but clothes and women’s boobs…and anything I’d done wrong.
“Different how?” I knew she was smarter than that, so I decided to shut up and wait her out. It was completely against my natural instincts but it generally worked on her.
Yep.
I had to wait nearly a full minute but eventually she gave in.
Her family was nuts.
“Less angry looking and he was studying the neighborhood like he was plotting a heist. He was definitely walking through all the houses and trying to remember who lived in each one.” Olivia sighed as she glanced back toward the front window. “So, slow, but not terminally stupid.”
He was just stubborn.
I was going to have to watch out for that because he wasn’t going to back down now.
“What do I say when he figures it out?” Stepping toward the door again, I wiggled my way in front of her to get a better view. “He’s very smart. And stubborn. He’s going to figure it out.”
“You’ve got to be kidding? You’ve been doing this for weeks. As long as you stop, he’s going to forget about it.” Olivia was convinced she was right, but I knew Levi better than that. “Just ignore the drama queen and play dumb if he ever actually notices you.”
That was never going to work.
“Alright.” It wasn’t worth arguing with her over. “When did you say you had to go?”
She’d only come over to watch the delivery and see his reaction, and she’d made it clear she couldn’t stay long. I just wasn’t sure if she’d told me why.
“Now.” Pulling her phone out, she frowned and nodded. “Yep, now. Julie’s going to meet me for a late lunch and then I’m going to meet Pepper for coffee.”
Was that a good idea?
I hadn’t dated enough to be sure, but two different women in the same afternoon said bad idea to me.
“Have fun.” That not my monkeys saying raced through my head, but I just smiled and played dumb. That way she couldn’t somehow make her bad decision my fault when it blew up in her face like Mandy and Sandy had.
The fact that she kept mixing up their names was definitely her fault.
“I will.” Her wicked grin as she hurried through the house and out the back door made me really glad I was the completely gay kind of gay and wasn’t even curious about women. “I always have fun.”
Players usually did.
I was the just want a Daddy and a steady partner type, so my days were usually much more boring than hers, but less people screamed at me in public on a regular basis.
It was a trade-off I didn’t mind most of the time.
Occasionally I was stupid, though, and I couldn’t decide if this was one of those times or not.
Yep, I’d been stupid.
I totally should’ve left with her and just tagged along on her impending doom of dates because Levi was marching across the street right at me.
Oops.
What was I supposed to do?
Run?
Hide?
My roommates had all gone home to their families which was why Olivia had been spending so much time hanging out with me helping me make bad decisions.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
He was at the door.
He knocked on the door.
My saving grace was that he didn’t seem to realize I was right on the other side of the door.
“For fuck’s sake, Theodore. Answer the fucking door.”
Shit.
I hated that name.
I was not a Theodore no matter what my mother’s psychic had said.
“You put your address on the school message board, asshole. All I had to do was google the address and you popped up.”
Damn it.
Looking for roommates was hard and had gotten me into trouble.
Everything I did got me in trouble lately.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Levi sounded just as grumpy as usual and just as stubborn. “Not until I apologize.”
Really?
“Soup?” His tone was less nuts and more grumbly. “It was that fucking wedding. That’s how you knew to torture me with soup.”
Yep.
Every person my parents hung out with were nuts…really nice…but insane.
An entire wedding menu should not have been planned around soup, even if it was fall themed and they were vegan.
“Open the door or I’m calling your mother and explaining that I was rude and need to apologize to you.”
Fucking cheater.
I swung around and whipped open the door before I could think about how stupid that was. “That’s cheating, asshole. Soup torture doesn’t mean you have to tell my mother.”
She was kind of insane about forgiveness and cleansing spirits and stuff that varied about every six months. I was not going to get stuck in some kind of ceremony to cleanse myself of anger because he was a dick.
He was a sexy dick, though.
He smirked.
Why was that expression so hot?
“I thought that would get you to open the door.” Still looking pleased with himself, Levi crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. “Soup torture, huh?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Playing dumb wouldn’t work for long but it was all my brain could come up with. “Soup?”
Rolling his eyes, Levi looked like he might’ve found the situation funny in some weird kind of way. It was completely unexpected and was probably part of the reason my brain was not working. “I should’ve remembered that stupid wedding my mother made me go to.”
“That was the biggest wedding any of us had ever seen.” Which was probably why they’d fed everyone soup. “Um, it’s nice to see you again, Levi. I’m not sure why we’re talking about a wedding, though.”
Somehow he just got sexier when he raised one eyebrow and gave me a Daddy look I wasn’t sure he realized he was making. “You don’t lie nearly well enough to get away with that, Chipmunk.”
Ugh.
Why were assholes so sexy?